M0nk3m4n

Yeah, I know most of you audio "specialists" shun the Z-5500, but mine cost only $220 new and sound far better than anything I've ever owned. Works for me.
As I've seen mentioned on some reviews of the Z-5500, the sub does tend to get worn out under normal use. (hell I never crank these over a third of the max!)
I've had 'em since '04 actually, so I'm not surprised they've finally gotten a bit screwy.
Anyway, so the sub still booms like mad, but it has this thing about higher freqs. (around 70-125 if I'm not mistaken) and kinda roars, apparently this is a common
happening after you've used 'em a while. I've read on multiple occasions that if you replace the stock sub you'll hear an immediate difference. ON TO THE POINT!

What I want to know is, which of these would be a better deal? (and if neither, recommend one $100-$150 range plz) HiVi SP10 ($181) or Dayton RSS265 ($126)
I am concerned with the Dayton's 24-600Hz response. Would it sound wrong for the sub to have that high of a freq? The HiVi only does 35-150, which sounds more correct. Also the wattages of these are quite high, should I check out ones closer to the 5500's 188w or is that part of its problem? Help me out here please guys.

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M0nk3m4n

Nobody got a clue? FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

Also, I looked into this...better deal? Sufficient for the 5500? Dayton QT255-4

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Judas

well i was going to reply but i do not really have a clear answer..

i've had my Z5500 sets for over 4 years with no degradation..

The one set has been brutally mangled due to going to trade shows and demos and mishandled by some school kids went they rented it

And even through all the insane damage it's received.. sound and work flawlessly yet.


Personally the one time i did try to get into the subwoofer... taking the 4 large bolt/screws out.. and then trying to pry off the plastic casing resulting in only destroying all that plastic without ever really getting to the screws/bolts for the subwoofer itself.

I have removed the backplate amp/heatsink but i didn't really bother to much beyond that.


So i don't know what would be an appropriate replacement.... from what i saw that logitech is using in these subs.... they are pretty damn impressive subwoofers... I haven't a CLUE how logitech is able to sell these system so cheap.

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kris23

how long has the z-5500 system been around? in this house there are 2 setups, both going strong.

i cant really say much about repairing it but if you can get an equivalent sub with similar specs you should get more life from it. however it may sound a bit different. i remember reading that the same amp circuit used in the z-5500 was also used in a previous design with a 7-8inch sub.

going by logitech specs, get a 10" sub rated at 8 ohms and hope it will fit in the system.

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Necrosis

I'd go w/ this: Rockford Fosgate P1S810 [P1S810] - $47.99 : AVD - Car Stereos, Car Speakers, Home Theater Systems, Navigation, In-Dash DVD Players, Televisions

M0nk3m4n

@Judas - Well on mine, I took off the front cover. Just due to that general stupid-factor. haha
Not sure how mine got so damaged...OR IF IT IS DAMAGED ACTUALLY, lol
I'm beginning to think maybe placement is the issue or something. It's under my desk in a
corner, but it ain't got a lot of air to breathe, this may make a difference too, anyway thanks.

@kris23 - 2003 I think? lol. That's what I plan to try. Closest to the specs as possible. Thanks Kris.

@Necrosis - Saaaay, this looks promising! And what a price! Hell if it doesn't work I could always
just slap it into this old girl for some improvement! Thanks for the recommendation man.
If I find that it's actually got a problem (see response to Judas), I will check that speaker out first.

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OmegaRED

I would just buy a used Z-5500 system. I've seen a few in the $200 range I'm sure there are people out there who blew the speakers or the control unit and are offloading the sub for cheap. If you post enough ads in the right places I bet you'd get a few responses, there's so many things that go wrong with the Z-5500 so parts will be out there.

Sometimes I think mine might be dying too even though it's barely been used it used to be so boomy I had to lower the sub to 1-2 bars before when gaming but now at 3 bars it's pretty comfortable. I'd dare say it's perfect but if it gets too weak that will suck. I swapped out the speakers that came with it with higher quality Energy speakers maybe that makes it sound less boomy to my ears.

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Judas

I had a long winded post here about using ANYTHING other then the stock z-5500 speakers with the system.


Essentially long story short (sigh)

It states clearly in the instruction/manual NEVER to use any other speakers with the z-5500... however this doesn't stop people (and of course this voids warranty too)

Depending on the speakers.... will draw power from the amp and prevent the other speakers from getting fed as much power as they need.... the subwoofer will get quieter .. the other channels usually get quieter too..... and the amp gets significantly warmer..

I had more to say.. but bleh

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OmegaRED

As long as they are 8ohm speakers and have a similar crossover frequency I can't see any problem. I just happened to have some Energy RC-Micro's which are smaller than the stock speakers but able to put out superior sound. Before that I had some Onkyo HTIB speakers hooked up and they worked just as well.

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Judas

of course they will work..

but 8ohm speakers is one matter that is a requirement..

however this doesn't account for the extra power needed to drive the speakers. Depending on the amount of extra material/magnets and whatnot.. there is still "more power" required to drive those larger speakers then that of the simplistic standard z-5500 speakers... significantly more... and it's gotta pull that from somewhere.

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Tyrsonswood

Amplifiers push.... speakers don't pull. If a speaker is rated higher than the amp (power rating, not ohms) then the amp will push up to it's max and not beyond, amp is happy, speakers are happy, there's no damage. The only time you can damage an amp is with miss-matched ohms, and in that case the ohms need to be lower than rated for the amp. (4ohm instead of the rated 8ohms..... 16ohms won't hurt the amp or the speakers, but won't be as loud) {tube amps would be a different story, but we aren't speaking of those}

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Judas

there is still a draw to push..

and an amp will try to push what it can...

I just know that experimenting with all the amps and whatnot i have..... that the amp will draw from other channels to push the power hungry ones.

Specially if the amp is already riding the limits of what it can provide/push..

Like i was going to mention in the long winded version.... i had played with a z-5500 with mismatched speakers and the first thing i noticed is that the SUB itself seemed to lose power emediately...

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Tyrsonswood

If you had ever built and or repaired audio amplifiers, as I have, you would know that's not true. Each channel has a discrete amplifier section, being discrete they don't interact the way you suggest. The only time one channel can rob from another is if there is a sub-standard, under powered, power supply, in which case all channels will suffer, not just the Sub. This deficient power supply may be the case in a Logitech system, I wouldn't know, if so they are asking for failure even with the standard speakers....... you have said in previous postings that these things don't fail so I'm doubting that they are power supply deficient.

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Judas

That is true.. but it still doesn't explain it.

Considering the home amplifiers.. very powerful ones.... many of which the channels SHARE the same amp itself... It all varies on the available power and having to "turn it up" to meet the previous volume set.

In this case.... and this doesn't ONLY apply to Logitech 5.1 unit.. it applies this applies to the yamaha, sears, baycrest, jvc, sony, technics, hitachi, etc and so on in both their stereo and 5.1 or surround sound packaged and decrete units.

You take a generic set of speakers.. put the same thing all the way around....now replace the 2 main channels with a slightly larger set of speakers and experience the drop in volume/power lvls....... depending on the circumstances and the sizes.... this will effect the sub (if it's being powered by all the same amp)

Now from what i gathered from the vetran techy that i know that has worked on everything conceiveable and only recently quit working on this stuff in the last 5 years or so.... has stated that a number of amplifiers use a unified amp for all channels.... and the way it works for most of these prepackaged units is by specifically designing each channel to draw a specific amount preset using the proper technology to do so.

When you plug in speakers that were not designed for this... it offsets these predetermined values.. causing other channels to lose in order to compensate for it.

While the amount of "power" being outputted is the same for the amp at the same volume ..... the other channels will appear to be less loud/clear and the replaced speakers won't seem to really have increase anything much. Crank the volume up a few to bring it back to what was about the same volume before.

The major issue is the fact that with this extra "load" your not going to ever be able to obtain the same volume before without popping something.

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OmegaRED

If you hook up 8ohm speakers to the Z-5500 it won't damage the unit or the speakers, I can tell you that much just because that's the same specs of the Z-5500's satellites. However, the sub has a built in crossover of 150hz so most speakers would be useless only very small home theater style ones will match.

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Necrosis

There is another reason: Speaker efficiency@Everything2.com

Judas

another prime example of what i've seen..


Almost all Sealed speakers will sound significantly quieter... however are always known to sound far better.. more accurate..

and require quite a bit more power to produce similare volumes..

Thanks Necrosis... part of what i was trying to explain was precisely explained in that link

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Necrosis

I really think everyone here has some great points, and technically speaking no one is really wrong. If it sounds good to you then that is all that matters.

M0nk3m4n

Off-topic much? Ha, but hey, some people learned from all the knowledgeable words flying around in here, so nothin wrong with that.
I'm going to give a replacement speaker a try. Cause, way I see it, a speaker's a speaker. As long as it's 8 ohm & the same on the
other specs, it should work fine. If you think Logitech telling you to only replace with one of their speakers means anything...well, you
might as well think it made a difference on my 1948 Arvin radio to replace its tubes with anything but "Genuine Arvin Quality Tubes" xD

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